Khôris oikountes and the obligations of freedmen in late-Classical and early-Hellenistic Athens

The article argues that the phrase khôris oikountes (Dem. IV 36-7) refers to a specific sub-category of freedmen. Two categories of manumitted slaves existed in fourth-century Athens: one group was bound by post-manumission contractual obligations to remain in the household of their former owners, and was thus normally unavailable to the Athenian navy for drafting. The second group consisted of those freedmen who were not bound by any such obligations, and who dwelt apart from their former owners. This latter group was to all intents and purposes in the same position vis-à-vis the state as the metics, and was thus liable to the navy draft. Crucial to our case is an in-depth philological analysis of the evidence for paramone-style obligations in Late Classical and Early Hellenistic Athens, the wills of the philosophers preserved in the writings of Diogenes Laertius.